how would you do it?

hgotsparkle

Yep save it all in one account and its there if you need it in the meantime until you buy a house.

Dunroamin

Reported as Spam.

Bangton

Dunroamin wrote: »

Does your household budget that covers everything, also cover any leisure activities? It isn't clear from your first post.

If it doesn't, then it isn't realistic. You obviously save for a holiday but the cost of going out together, whether as a couple or as a family, needs to come out of your normal budget rather than savings.

I'm just wondering this. My OH and I have a certain amount set aside monthly for clothes and leisure activities. We either use it or it rolls over but I know some families don't do this at all. If you haven't factored anything like this in then this would affect my opinion.

Assuming you have I'd say £900 savings towards the house and £300 separately to use as and when something comes up like a holiday.

If you haven't I'm with Dunroamin - it wouldn't be realistic at all and I'd start factoring something in for leisure time every month and then looking at what's left from that. In leisure time I'd say my OH and I spend around £200 for meals out, coffees, day trips (always cost of petrol to factor in) but this can be a lot higher if say we had a week off work!

I find the easiest way for me is just to put whatever is spare at the end of the month aside and we'll dip in if we want something or need something for our home.

Lunar_Eclipse

I would save the full £1200/month (& see if you can cut the £1800/month expenses to see if you can save even more.)

I wouldn't get hung up on how the savings were split, I would just be very strict about saving it and not spending it, unless there was an emergency (burst pipe or broken washing machine but not a broken TV or dress for a special night out.) Having said that, mentally I would be focussed on building a 6 month emergency fund - which at your current expense rate will take 9 months) and then diverting the full £1200 to house deposit savings.

I would also look at potential options to getting on the housing market sooner, say in 3 years time, in order to keep you motivated in reaching your goal, and then pushing yourselves harder than you are planning on the savings front.

lushlifesaver

Personally, I would look to save the full £1200 a month for three months in to the emergency fund to give that a kick start. I would put it in a relatively easy access account with a decent rate to start.

After the initial three months I would settle in to £800 per month towards a mortgage pot (giving you £10'200 per year before interest etc) whacking this in to a savings account which isn't instant access (the kind you have to write/call before taking anything out) to get a good rate.

I'd then chuck £200 per month in to the emergency fund (so at the end of the first year you would have £5400 in there - plus interest). and £200 per month in to a holiday fund. Now - personally we don't take holidays that cost that much. Whilst we want to in future it definitely won't be every year so we would actually probably only add to this for 6-8months then spend other 4-6months adding that extra £200 to the mortgage pot. that way we'd get a nice holiday every other year - which is more than enough in our opinions! and still keep that mortgage pot adding up.

Personally once the emergency fund is at about £10'000 I would look to move some of it in to a harder to access (but not one that takes a month to get any money out of!) account with a better rate to ensure it grows steadily with interest whilst I save more. I would never stop putting in to the emergency fund whereas the mortgage savings would obviously then turn in to a mortgage repayment coupled with the current rent...but that's a whole different scenario and a few years down the line